


Taking Care

by Daegaer



Series: For Art's Sake [27]
Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: 1920s, AU, Artists, Assassins & Hitmen, Historical, M/M, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-04 23:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4157712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crawford makes Schuldig an offer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Care

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2015 Weiss vs Saiyuki Battle Challenge 4, for the "At Last!" theme.

I am standing idly by the window, smoking my first cigarette of the day, when my attention is drawn to two young men, hardly more than boys, weaving their way up the path beneath. Although it is early – though not perhaps early as many of those who work in offices or shops would consider it – they have very obviously been drinking, and are caught in the stage when the world is enormously amusing. Passers-by glare at them in condemnation, which amuses them all the more, causing them to blow kisses or sing snatches of song. What I can make out of the lyrics makes me glad I can't hear them more clearly. They stop, right beneath my window, propping each other up, and one of them gestures vaguely towards the sky, knocking his cap off as he does so. The morning light shines on his bright red hair and I step back from the window. Oh, dear God. _Please_ , I think, suddenly rediscovering my faith, _let all my neighbours be out_.

"Bye, Robbie!" I hear Schuldig call below, and a cheerful, answering yell of, "Bye, Fritz!"

I blink. I must have misheard. I peer downwards, and frown. It's not a good angle, but I have an excellent eye for colour and I could swear that Schuldig is wearing rouge. As if he knows what I'm thinking, he pulls out a handkerchief, spits in it and starts scrubbing his face. Just then the front door opens and Mr Russell, the retired cleric who lives downstairs meets him face-to-face. Schuldig skips somewhat clumsily past him as Mr Russell stares after him in astonishment, before looking up at my window in disapproval. I cringe and wait for the knock on my door, then just fling it open, to discover Schuldig, his hand raised to knock and his face pink and scrubbed mostly clean.

"That was well-timed!" he says happily. "Hello! I know I'm early, what's for breakfast?"

"Get in here," I say, dragging him inside before anyone else can see a drunk boy loitering on my doorstep. "Why are you drunk? _How_ can you be drunk? It isn't even ten o'clock!"

"You just don't know where the early morning pubs are," he says. "I should take you. Bit of local colour for your pictures."

I wipe a finger near his ear. "Speaking of colour," I say, looking at the smear of rouge he missed.

He grins, unrepentantly. "Like it, do you?"

I tow him over to the table and push him down on a chair. "I'll get you coffee."

"Make it the way I like it," he orders, and starts picking holes in the loaf of bread.

"Just cut a proper slice!" I say in despair, before fearing the results of a knife in his unsteady hands, and hurrying myself to cut him a large slice. I go back to the stove and make strong, black coffee. I ladle sugar into his cup and make him drink, though he complains with each sip. He smells strongly of cigar smoke and aftershave - neither, I think, his own.

"I know you don't mind me being early," he says. "If I went home, who knows when I'd get away, all I'd hear would be _Where were you all night? What sort of time do you call this?_ So fucking boring –" He falls silent suddenly, as if berating himself for telling me anything about his home.

"You were out all night?"

"So? I can do as I please. And now I'm here." He gives me a very charming smile. "Don't be boring."

I manage to smile back. "We should work, as you're here. If you don't need to rest?"

"I'm fine," he says with the indestructible energy of the very young. He lays his jacket over the end of the bed and strips, pulling on my robe to keep warm. "Ready," he says.

In the other room he looks around, and grabs up the curtain rod we were using as a prop.

"My trusty spear," he giggles, running his hand suggestively up and down it. "With its nice, thick shaft."

"You're not much different drunk, are you?" I say, aiming for amusement, but sounding, I fear rather too much like I imagine my neighbour Mr Russell would. "Do you remember the pose?"

"Of course," he says scornfully, tossing the robe behind him. He bends one leg slightly and leans on the curtain rod, looking pensively into the middle distance, as if contemplating battles lost and won, or more likely, where he can persuade me to take him for lunch. After some minutes he focuses on me in confusion. "You're not drawing, why not?"

"Oh, Schuldig," I say. "What happened?"

He seems, for the first time since I have known him, embarrassed by his nakedness. He turns away, carefully propping the curtain rod against the small couch, and picks up the robe, draping it over himself, hiding the worst of the bruises.

"Nothing," he says. "I get clumsy when I'm drunk."

I can see the marks of fingers perfectly well. I feel sick with anger and fear for him. I don't know what to say to him; whether I should console him, or shout at him for being a fool, or perhaps shout at myself for my own foolishness. I settle for saying firmly, "Nobody should hurt you. Nobody."

The look on his face is wistful, as if I have described some place he would like to see some day. It's too much; I go over and hold him carefully.

"Please tell me what happened," I say as he strokes my back.

"Oh, nothing much," he says with most of his usual cheer. "How come _you're_ the one sounding like you want to fucking cry? Come on, I'm all right. Anyway, afterwards Robbie and me went and drank it off. We're fine."

"Robbie and I, _really_ , Schuldig."

We both laugh a little. He pushes my hair back from my eyes.

"Oh, excuse me, Mr Bradley American Crawford. Who's the fucking Englishman in this room? Don't tell me how to speak." He gives me a weary grin. "Fuck anyone who says I'm not English, eh?"

"So why did your friend call you _Fritz_?" I ask.

Schuldig's smile drops away. "Oh, you heard that, did you?" he says. "It is a real fucking name, it's not just what people call Germans."

"Is it your name?" I ask, astonished that I might actually know it after all this time.

"No," he says, and smirks at my expression. "Williamson thinks it's funny to call me that. What do I care?" He winces as I close my hands rather too tightly on his shoulders. "Hey, careful!"

I knew it, I think. He has been bruised before when he has spent time with Williamson and his friends. This is the worst I've seen, the marks reaching around his ribs, another patch of bruising marking his thigh. He will be very stiff once he stops moving, I think. It must only be youth and alcohol that has kept him going this long.

"Schuldig," I say carefully, "I don't think you should spend any more time with Mr Williamson and his friends."

He gives me the sort of smile I used to give those older than me who gave _me_ advice.

"I can take care of myself," he says. "I can't make you any promises, not when you still need his friends to buy those paintings. You start selling your other paintings, Crawford. I won't have you running back to America."

"No, you mustn't endanger yourself on my account, I mean it," I say, "Anyone who hurts you isn't your friend. I'm not trying to spoil your fun, I'm trying –"

" – to save me," he says, sniggering. He pats my face, his touch still a little clumsy. "You don't understand. But you're kind. Come here –"

He presses his lips to mine, then leans against me.

"I'm tired," he says quietly. "I'm so tired, Crawford."

"Yes," I say, holding him. I feel awful, both at the thought that he is hurt and that he has been hurt, it seems, to help me. "I'd never hurt you. I know you said you didn't want me to buy you presents, but please, let me look after you."

"You have no idea what you're saying," he says, sounding as if he is sliding towards sleep.

I close my eyes and put all the neighbours and relatives of mine in the world from my mind. "I know what I'm saying," I whisper in his ear.

He jerks awake and stares at me. "Now I _know_ I'm still fucking drunk," he says. "Take me to bed and prove what you just said."

I feel myself go so red that I think I will burn to a cinder, and all speech deserts me. Schuldig looks at me in amusement and, I think, disappointment. He shakes his head rather scornfully.

"I think I was right the first time. When you do know what you want, let me in on the secret." He takes pity on me then, wrapping himself close again. "Don't look so downhearted, you were doing well. But come on, let's do some work, and then I'm going to have a nap in your bed. If you want to join me –"

He kisses me, and I do my best to hold him there as long as possible, cursing my own stupidity. He smiles at me then, as if he knows my own self-condemnations and does not mind, for all he sees is someone who cares for him.

"Let me look after you," I say again, greatly daring. "I know what I'm saying."

"Maybe," he says, and his laughter this time is merely fond. "If you're lucky."


End file.
